To think flying off on holidays is immoral?

[RedTriangle]

Anyone planning to fly off on holidays?

“Every round-trip ticket on flights from New York to London, keep in mind, costs the Arctic three more square meters of ice”
nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

I live near an airport and there is a steady stream of planes landing and taking off. It feels ominous now in light of the recent WWF report talking about life on earth being wiped out.

There are posts on mumsnet on the section about long haul travel where people are talking about flying off with their families to Thailand or Mexico etc not thinking or not caring about the impact! Future generations won’t be jetting off and living lives like this as we will have destroyed the planet and they will be scrambling to survive.

My parents have booked a weekend in Spain! They regularly do this and they will be long gone while future people pay a terrible price.

I haven't been on a plane for over ten years, and have only flown a few times in my entire life. I try to cut down on plastic, have massively reduced how many clothes I buy.

But on the flip side, we are a two car family through necessity. There is no public transport where we live that would allow us to commute to work. We would love nothing more than to live somewhere with adequate bus services, but our earnings don't stretch to that, so we have to live where we can afford to live. And then, aside from work, I am a carer for my elderly mother. Since there is no public transport at night or weekends, I can't do that without driving either, even if we could afford to move house to somewhere that would allow us to commute to work. It's an absolute minefield. And if I'm honest, the thought of not being able to eg go to a forest for a walk on a Sunday afternoon, or take my kids to a museum, is just too depressing for words. I live 15 miles from the sea and if we didn't have a car of our own, my kids would never actually have seen it. That's how little public transport is available in my area, and it's not unique, there must be millions of people in the UK who live in a similar way.

Affordable housing and public transport would make a big difference withing the UK.

Air travel companies would be forced to make a move to cleaner fuel source sooner in order to stay in business.
Electric mass transit aircraft are already in design

@WithAFaeryHandInHand MN bingo thought I'd get in there first 😁

I mean you exhale carbon dioxide which contributes to greenhouse gases. So you should really stop breathing if you want to save the planet. You selfish cow you.

LOL @ Opinion.

I mean you exhale carbon dioxide which contributes to greenhouse gases. So you should really stop breathing if you want to save the planet
Actually methane is 30x worse so everyone should just plug up their arses

I stand corrected @THEsonofaBITCH ! 

Tbh, I don’t like the “hypocrite” label
when it comes to this sort of thing. We are all “hypocrites” technically, as nobody is perfect.

Vegans who eat imported quinoa, avocados or palm oil in their treats.

Or like the man I know who was very noisy about population and all things eco who is now undergoing IVF with his gf as they have fertility issues. Apparently it’s ok and in fact, desirable, for HIM to reproduce, just not everyone else .

I don’t do as much as I can, but I’m trying. If I wanted to avoid being called a hypocrite, would I have to stop trying altogether? That’s a dangerous idea.

The op shouldn’t have said “immoral” imo, but she is quite clearly spinning out a bit about climate change, so maybe cut her some slack?

What does irk me is the many people saying “I will continue to do so...”. Basically; I do x, y or z, I know it’s not ideal, but I’m going to continue to do so.

I fly short haul myself, maybe twice a year and I don’t feel good about it. So I might try and reduce that to once a year. My family sometimes have to fly to London with work, so I feel less bad if I catch up with them then.

I also have had a car for the past year (for the first time ever as I resisted for a long time). I don’t use it much, but I know I shouldn’t have it. So I’m thinking of getting rid of it and buying a cargo bike for transporting babies.

I’m trying to reduce plastic use and going veggie with very little dairy. But I’m technically a hypocrite because I do lots of the wrong things too.

But there’s no way I would just shrug my shoulders and say “I will continue to do this...”. At least I am trying and taking on board what the op rightly says about flying.

Maybe that’s what people actually mean when they say they will continue to do x, y or z though... they will continue to do it, but reduce maybe? And maybe I’m wrongly taking it to mean they will continue EXACTLY as before.

YY, to the pp saying it’s not like you can return children to sender. It’s not exactly helpful, and it comes up on every climate change thread; “You can’t talk if you’ve had children” says someone, as if it’s news that additional people (children) create a larger carbon footprint. That message has been repeated on this (parenting) forum, ad nauseum, for years.

It’s fine to point it out and indeed, I think it needs to be discussed more, but not in the way it’s bandied about as a weapon on here. Oh, thought you were allowed views on climate change? Nah. If you have children, shut up.

For one thing, it isn’t as simple as no children = good, children = bad. It’s already been discussed at length on here, so before I get a bunch of responses saying “it really is that simple”, maybe try reading before writing. Just a polite suggestion .

I totally agree that population is a huge problem and I wouldn’t encourage people to have children, especially more than two. But equally, I don’t feel it is my place to tell people not to have them. Maybe the time will come soon enough, when we have one or two child policies.

Anyway, there are other issues at play, such as the ageing population due to people living longer and then the huge issue of overconsumption.

As I’ve already said, a large family in parts of Africa consumes less than a single person in the west, which implies to me that population and having babies is not the only problem.

Again, I don’t think that means, “go forth and multiply”. Deciding to have children does, and should, require serious thought and a change in the damaging expectation that EVERYONE must breed, regardless of whether they really want to.

strowman! Sorry, you were a little late to the overpopulation party.

Nothing brings out the worst in people like someone trying to do the right thing.

Well said BR.

Maybe that’s what people actually mean when they say they will continue to do x, y or z though... they will continue to do it, but reduce maybe?

WithAFaeryHandInHand I actually don't want to go through my life without seeing the world and no amount of guilt tripping about the environment from strangers would stop me. The cost would have to be so prohibitive as well to stop me that I suspect most people then would not be able to afford to fly and that would have major impact for lots of economies

So yes I am one of them shrugging my shoulders on things such as flights and saying no I won't cut down.

The extremist views are the problem and not a solution. Flying = immoral, having children = immoral, feeding the planet = immoral, using water = immoral, etc. Man is the only species that can change their environment on a global scale and we learn, invent and progress. Flying electric aircraft = in development; feeding more people with less toxicity and less land required and damaged = in development; desalinating water to supply from the oceans = in development/improvement; having children to improve the situation = in development energy not through fossil fuel and splitting atoms = in development; etc. Saying to stop something is ridiculous - saying improve it to eliminate problems is the only viable alternative; bell can't be unrung.

Yeah, I thought that was what at least some people meant bats.

My conscience wouldn’t allow me to make zero effort to at least reduce. But I’m also far from perfect so 🤷‍♀️.

According to a study into true impacts of different green lifestyle choices, the number one thing we can all do that will impact climate change. Have fewer children.

Next best actions are selling your car, avoiding flights and going vegetarian.

"

I also agree that the more extreme views aren’t helpful bitch. And actually they’re usually the most ignorant or the quickest to be hypocritical.

But if flying is the obvious thing and a big contributor to global warmin then why not start there?

There will always be people for whom flying is important (family abroad for example) and who have a lesser carbon footprint in other ways (no kids, no pets, vegan) who will argue that's not fair.

I think encouraging people to lower their carbon footprint more generally is the way to go. The issue is that everyone will have to take much more extreme measures than they do now to make a difference.

I have made a decision not to have kids because of their future is so uncertain. I eat a plant based diet.

I take lots of holidays and drive a petrol car, I also have two dogs.

Point is, NONE of us are beyond reproach

One thing that's always puzzled me is why we can't just have changeable batteries for cars. The London Electrobus Company back in 1908 could drive a bus onto a ramp, and two men changed the battery in less than 3 minutes. Why can't we get robots doing that for cars? You wouldn't even need to get out of your car - just zap your card, wait 1 minute for the new battery to be put in and go. Ah well - hopefully they'll get there eventually. You know, before the icebergs all melt...

www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2014/01/09/the-fraud-that-killed-off-londons-first-electric-buses/

I think encouraging people to lower their carbon footprint more generally is the way to go

You see that approach is a much better one in my opinion rather that like the OP who decided she doesn't need to fly anymore and thus tried to push her decision onto everyone else. You are also more likely to engage people rather than disengage them because we are all different and picking and choosing what we do rather than being dictated to usually by people choosing to ignore their own faults would I think have a more successful outcome. Someone who decided they are more virtuous because they don't fly telling me I am immortal just switches me off apart from frothing on here

I think the word you are looking for is unethical.
We'd all be better off getting Phillip Hammond to impose a plastics levy which he abysmally swerved this budget.
Ive tried to reduce my plastic consumption in the supermarket and it is impossible without spending much, much more.
The government policies on environmental matters are woeful if not downright damning to show where their attitudes lie.
Etc,etc

Bertrand Yep.

I see where you’re coming from bats. And as mushroom says, none of us is beyond reproach. But I actually think people will not make significant enough changes until they are forced to. No, not by people on MN saying you’re immoral for flying or anything. I completely understand why people don’t like being called immoral for something they do with no malice and why that would fall on deaf ears.

But I do think the time will come when we will not have the same level of choice in what we eat / consume / drive / how many children we have etc.

But if that doesn’t happen, as a pp said, most people would rather await the end of the world while eating their steaks and flying long haul several times a year, if they so wish.

So it will go one way or the other. People will eventually be forced to change or I don’t think they will.

The reason I understand the word “immoral” though I wouldn’t have used it myself, is, if we do take the “sit it out, eat steak, enjoy myself, do what I like” with ZERO effort to change, who do you think will be worst hit first? The west? Or the people who already consume a lot less and don’t have our luxuries?